2 Tight Muscles Affecting Your Low Back Pain
When certain muscles become tight, they can have a large impact on surrounding structures. Tight muscles can create increased stresses on joints and other tissues. Keep in mind, tight muscles are typically a secondary result of an injury, pathology, or dysfunction. Tight muscles are rarely, if ever, the cause of pain. However, in a state of chronic pain and dysfunction, tight muscles can certainly contribute to the pain you might be feeling. When it comes to low back pain, the hip flexors and hamstring muscles play a key role.
Most people have tightness in either their hip flexors or hamstrings. We as a society sit for the majority of the day. This can lead to tightness in both the hip flexors and hamstrings from being in a shortened position for extended periods of time. It can be very difficult to achieve a healthy balance of these muscles. There are many factors that play into muscle tightness. Without diving head first into all the complicating factors that influence muscle tightness, I wanted to share a few important points in these videos.
Here is another part of our educational vlog series. In these two videos, I describe how the hip flexor and hamstring muscles influence the joints of the low back. Enjoy!
Tight Hip Flexors
Tight Hamstrings
If you would like to know certain stretches and exercises for the hip flexors and hamstrings, please follow us on Instagram @physiostrength. That is where we post most of our video content. As always, please feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions. I am always happy to take suggestions on topics you would like to see in our blog content.
Keep in mind, low back pain is a very complicated condition and is rarely the result of one specific thing. Low back pain is multi-faceted and proper treatment requires a thorough evaluation from a qualified physical therapist. If you would like to schedule an appointment with me, you can do so online from our Physical Therapy page.
Sincerely,
Dr. Connor Naccarato DPT, MTC, CSCS